Use of the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-11 to reverse HIV-1gp120 repression of a natural killer cell line.

Enhancing natural killer (NK) cell activation has been associated with protection from human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infections and slowed onset of immunodeficiency. However, soluble HIV-1 envelope protein, gp120, has been shown to impair NK cell cytokine secretion and cell-mediated cytotoxicity. Here we show that gp120 suppressed IFN-γ production and cytotoxic function of a human NK cell line NK-92MI.